... or a scarf. Have Sweater Christmas. Or Scarf Christmas. Or Sweater/Scarf/Gloves Christmas. It would be so much simpler and nicely reciprocal. And if people are traveling by plane, it will be easy to slip these things into the suitcases and nothing's going to get broken.

Or do you think you need to be more creative? If so, I have a suggestion! It's The Hoof Candle, from D.L. & Co.:

$150.00!

Aunus, the roman version of pan, is the companion of the nymphs and god of shepherds and flocks. His lower half being that of a goat represents our barbaric nature or beastial side of our humanity: indulgence and celebration. The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans often designed their furniture with the legs of beasts, this grounded the pieces to the earth and paid homage to the animal nature in all humans. D.L. & Co.'s Effigy Wax Sculptures are exquisite, exceptional works of art, each a timeless treasure to appreciate and admire. Due to the non-linear shape of the sculpture, the wick does not run from the top to the base.

28 comments:

here iwas try[ing a post about hygiene and you come up with a sweater post just like me.

how do you do it?

I'll just type it here:

what is lack of hygiene?

it's the mistruth they told you about peoples in the middle of the last millennium. How they were filthy and did not take baths. Amazing though, that you can get clean using salts and oils and food, as good as getting clean from chemical detergents. I miss that attractive mideastern guy selling that stuff and giving me a laugh. Remind myself to belly dance tonight.

Beauty sells, though. Just ask any lady with un-natural hair color that uses laboratory created skin care, deoderant a couple times a day and weekly manicures to remove any spec of dirt from beneath her nail.

Salts and oils do a good job of keeping you clean from the inside out. Body odor comes from eating toxins and your sweat smells different when the toxins get released in oily sweat areas. The best way to see if your insides are functioning is if your outsides and getting rid of it. Also the other things you eat will come out: refined sugar products in sweat attract smelly bacteria. But you all keep on piling on that deodorant and you'll never think you have liver disease until…

until other serious symptoms tell you otherwise.

Just like air freshener in the duct work! Everything is fine because we cleaned and deodorized and disinfected the surface.

Nancy check that bulge in your lower ribcage on the side every now and then, okay? I don't want you using to many health care dollars, private or public.

" Therefore, when Sunday came, the mender of roads was not enchanted (though he said he was) to find that madame was to accompany monsieur and himself to Versailles. It was additionally disconcerting to have madame knitting all the way there, in a public conveyance; it was additionally disconcerting yet, to have madame in the crowd in the afternoon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited to see the carriage of the King and Queen.

I made sweaters for everyone in my (large) family one Christmas while I was still in college. Money was in very short supply, yarn wasn't that expensive, and I had plenty of time on my hands. (I used to knit during several of my lecture classes, which in retrospect seems kind of rude, but it never stopped me from participating in the classes.)

Now my hobby has morphed into "reading about knitting" or "knitting a project to 97% completion and then forgetting about it". I finally stopped buying yarn.

Back on topic, it was certainly easier for me, once I established the theme for the year.

I am a sucker for Christmassy-themed books so I bought it last year. It's a very quick read. 200 pp or so. Like Knox said about his humour, he tries too hard in everything, but actually it's a nice story.

I noticed Memeorandum posted gleeful reviews about his film "tanking" yesterday, but it's actually the second year he's done a live broadcast -- I'm not sure just how many times he can go to the well in future, especially so early in the Christmas season.

How could one go wrong with a sweater theme? And you're right, cashmere in particular, packs easily, taking up little space.

That being said, I still think a book theme would please more people, especially the busy Christmas traveler.

Heck, you could even pick the book up last minute at the airport, read it while waiting and waiting then flying and waiting and waiting again. You can also get a gift bag at any airport, which folds small enough to put in your purse or jacket pocket.

When you arrive at your destination, you pull out the gift bag, put in the book you had time to finish reading, ring the doorbell and prepare for a warm greeting. Perfect for the person on the "go".

A theme seems like the kind of thing that sounds like it could be a lot of fun, but ends up sucking all the fun out instead.

Seems like it could veer a little close to conscription gifts territory. It's what I hate about my office Secret Santa. They have us fill out these long detailed wishlists and hand them out. We're all supposed to stick exactly to the extremely specific requests. What's the point? Why don't I just hand you some money so you can go out and buy yourself whatever you want?

I'm the pain in the ass that writes "I'm not picky, surprise me" every year. That's the whole fun of gift giving and receiving, in my opinion.

The most fun we had as a group Christmas gift exchange was where we each bought something really really stupid or in poor taste or really silly. Wrapped it up and put it on the table. Then there was one extra gift so that if there were 10 people, we had 11 packages.

We all drew numbers. Number One, picked a gift. (You can't pick your own). Opened the gift and then Number Two could take that gift or pick from the pile. If you took #1's gift, then they picked and unwrapped again. Then Number Three could take either of the unwrapped gifts or go to the pile.

And so on until the last person got two gifts.

The year we did it my daughter ended up with two stuffed real frogs playing instruments. So tacky. I ended up with a beer hat that has the holders for the two cans and straws. I really wanted to keep that one and was glad that no one took it from me......always wanted to have a hat like that....LOL

It was a blast!! We laughed our asses off. You must get really terrible, embarrassing, stupid, pointless gifts to make it work.

Some, a minority, believe that "The Great Pan is dead" was a ritual cry from an annual ceremonial death and resurrection 3 days later of Pan, son of Hermes the fertility god. Tammuz, a.k.a. Adonis, was worshiped in much the same way.